RC mayor won’t seek re-election

ROGERS CITY – At a City of Rogers City Council meeting Tuesday, Mayor Beach Hall announced he won’t run for re-election after serving for more than a decade.

Hall said he planned on making the announcement soon, but ended up making it sooner than planned. The city had to move an election filing deadline to Aug. 13, the 12th Tuesday before the election. The change was necessary so the city can get out absentee ballot information. Rather than letting people wonder and speculate whether he would file to run, he decided to set the matter to rest.

However, the main reason behind Hall’s decision is his age, he said. He’s approaching 83, and decided it’s time to let someone younger to take the reins.

“I just recently attended my 60th college reunion, and I realized I’m in better shape than most people my age,” he said. “It was a wake-up call for something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, anyway.”

Hall is the second-longest serving mayor in Rogers City, having served 12 years, he said. In that time, he’s accomplished a lot, and had to think about his proudest accomplishment. One small change he made early on was to open Sixth Street at its south end. Allied Ambulance had its ambulance barn at the end of Sixth Street, but ambulance drivers had to go out to Bradley Highway, then to Erie Street to get into the city. This added time to ambulance runs, but making the change caused some controversy.

“This was probably the biggest crowd, the most hostile crowd I faced as mayor, but it was the right thing to do, for Pete’s sakes, so we did it,” he said.

Hall has many more accomplishments he’s proud of, he said, adding he’d give a farewell speech in December.